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We reported last week that Delta Air Lines was giving up its Seattle-to-Tokyo Haneda route at the end of September, but we didn’t have the June 17 letter it sent to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Now we do.

Below is the letter from Alexander Van der Bellen, a Delta managing director and associate general counsel, to Paul Gretch, director of DOT’s Office of International Aviation.

Dear Mr. Gretch:

We appreciate the Department’s decision in Order 2015-6-14 to allow the Seattle-Haneda slot to remain with Delta. Delta has worked hard to develop Seattle-Haneda service under the difficult operating conditions imposed by the U.S.-Japan bilateral agreement, and we have relied on dormancy rights to adjust our services in response to seasonal market conditions. However, we understand the Department in Order 2015-6-14 to be recommending that carriers return Haneda slots to DOT if operating them on a year-round, daily basis is not commercially feasible.

We have determined that it is not commercially feasible to operate the slots allocated to Delta for Seattle-Haneda service on a consistent daily basis year-round because: (i) demand for Seattle-Haneda service is highly variable, peaking in the summer and declining in the winter; and (ii) Delta lacks a Japan airline partner to provide connectivity beyond Haneda to points in Japan and other countries in Asia. While Delta would prefer to continue to develop Seattle- Haneda service in competition with the American/JAL and United/ANA alliances at Haneda, Delta will follow DOT’s guidance in Order 2015-6-14 and return the slots to DOT.

In order to provide a smooth transition and avoid disruption to currently booked passengers, Delta plans to operate Seattle-Haneda service under the terms of the Order through September 30, 2015, when our last eastbound flight will depart Haneda for Seattle. We will then return the slots to the Department for reallocation effective October 1, 2015. Due to currently booked loads, it is not possible to re-accommodate passengers who are booked on flights before that date. In addition, we will dismiss the pending D.C. Circuit litigation, which is currently subject to an abeyance order.

Every U.S. carrier serving Japan will now have one pair of Haneda slots. Delta remains strongly opposed to any further changes to the Haneda operating rules unless and until Japan is willing to open the airport under normal open skies terms and allow Delta to relocate its Tokyo hub operation to the preferred airport. Any incremental or phased deal effective before then would be harmful and unfair to Delta as a Narita hub operator. Accordingly, we urge the U.S. government to aggressively pursue a full opening of Haneda to allow fair and equal access by U.S. carriers and their customers.

In a battle started last October by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines fought for months to hold onto its right to fly between Seattle and Tokyo’s closer-in Haneda International Airport.

After all that, Delta informed the U.S. Department of Transportation late Wednesday that it would give up the route in late September.

“Delta has determined that its Seattle-Haneda service is not viable under the current regulatory and market conditions, and therefore will suspend service. The last flight departing Seattle-Tacoma International Airport will be on Sept. 28, 2015, and the last flight from Haneda will depart on Sept. 30, 2015,” Delta spokesman Trebor Banstetter said Thursday. “After those operations, Delta will return the slot to the Department of Transportation.”

He said the airline “remains committed to our international hub in Seattle, and will continue to provide Seattle-Tokyo service via our daily nonstop service to Tokyo-Narita. In addition, Delta will continue to serve Tokyo-Haneda from Los Angeles International Airport.”

The route authority will flop to American, which will begin flights from Los Angeles to Haneda in October. That service will be competing directly against Delta’s flight and one operated by All Nippon Airways, an alliance partner of United Airlines.

“We’re excited to be flying from LAX to Haneda this fall, and we look forward to giving our customers better access to downtown Tokyo and further building on our presence in Asia,” AA spokesman Casey Norton said Thursday.

When that happens, that route authority will be on its third U.S. city. It started out as a Detroit-Haneda route for Delta, moved to Seattle and now to Los Angeles.

American launched a war over the Haneda route last Oct. 2 when it asked DOT to take the route away from Delta and give it to American to fly Los Angeles-Haneda.

American pointed out that Delta for half the year was flying the route only often enough to avoid letting the route go dormant 90 days in a row. That would trigger a possible revocation of the route authority.

On Dec. 15, DOT responded by starting a proceeding to consider if Delta should hang onto the Haneda route.

Delta vigorously defended the route and its right to hold onto it, questioned the legality of the DOT review and said it would go to daily service anyway.

“Seasonal variations are common in many international markets and while Delta is operating at a temporarily-reduced level, Delta has firm plans, has allocated aircraft, is actively marketing, and will operate daily service at the start of the IATA Summer Season, effective March 29, 2015 and beyond,” Delta said in a January response.

In a decision made final on Monday, the DOT left Delta keep the Seattle-Haneda route. However, it required Delta to operate it every day of the year or face losing it to the backup airline, American, for Los Angeles-Haneda service.

An Embraer ERJ-190 operated by Aeromexico Connect lands in February at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. (Terry Maxon/DMN)

Delta Air Lines and Grupo Aeromexico, both members of the SkyTeam alliance, said Tuesday they’ve asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to grant them antitrust immunity so they can cooperate more fully on U.S. and Mexican flights.

The airlines put the value of the joint ventures at $1.5 billion. They said they’ll also apply for approval from Mexican regulators.

“Mexico is the most popular international destination for Delta customers, and our proposed joint venture will offer our customers more schedule and destination choices, whether traveling for business or pleasure,” Delta president Ed Bastian said.

“Approval of antitrust immunity will allow travelers to fully benefit from all the aspects of a future Delta-Aeromexico joint venture, including the combination of two complementary networks,” he said.

“We are thrilled at this opportunity to further deepen our relationship with Delta. The potential to align our networks and scheduling means that we will be able to offer greater customer choice than we would have been able to offer individually,” Grupo Aeromexico CEO Andres Conesa said.

Overall, the nation’s major airlines posted an on-time arrival rate of 75.3 percent in December, up from the 68.9 percent rate a year earlier. Severe winter storms impacted hurt airline on-time performance in December 2013.

Overall, U.S. airlines canceled 1.4 percent of their scheduled U.S. flights in December, down from 2.9 percent a year earlier. Southwest canceled 0.8 percent of its flights, the fifth worst rate. American canceled 0.7 percent of its flights, the seventh worst

Airlines improved their mishandled baggage rate to 4.25 reports per 1,000 passengers up from 4.56 a year earlier.

U.S. airlines reported no tarmac delays over four hours in December.

U.S. airline on-time flight statistics

Rank

Airline

Percent of on-time flight arrivals

1

Delta Air Lines

88.9%

2

Hawaiian Airlines

87.9%

3

Alaska Airlines

80.4%

4

JetBlue Airways

80.4%

5

American Airlines*

76.7%

6

ExpressJet Airlines

76.0%

7

United Airlines

72.4%

8

Southwest Airlines**

72.0%

9

Virgin America

68.2%

10

Frontier Airlines

67.8%

11

Skywest Airlines

67.2%

12

Enovy Air

63.1%

Total

75.3%

* American’s rate is a combination of 73.3% on-time performance for American flights and 81.3 percent for US Airways’ flights. The two airlines merged in late 2013.
** Southwest’s rate is a combination of 71.5% on-time performance for Southwest flights and 87.3 percent for Airtran Airways’ flights. The two airlines merged in 2011.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is standing by its decision to review whether to take a Tokyo Haneda route away from Delta Air Lines and give it to another airline.

In a decision Thursday, DOT granted Delta’s request that DOT reconsider its decision to start a Haneda route case. Upon reconsideration, DOT said it is going forward.

American Airlines started the fight in early October when it pointed out that Delta was barely using its Seattle-Haneda rights during the winter season. American asked the DOT to take away Delta’s Seattle-Haneda route and let American use the daily Haneda flight to operate nonstop service from Los Angeles.

The department agreed and began a proceeding to review whether Delta should lose the route and if so, which airline should get the route. Seattle has applied to keep the route in Seattle, American has proposed Los Angeles, and Hawaiian Airlines wants a Haneda flight from Kona, Hawaii.

DOT said that as it stated in its order last month, it “has determined that, in light of Delta’s extensive winter-season cutbacks, and the submissions filed on the record in this case, the public interest requires a fresh examination of whether the best use of the Seattle-Haneda opportunity is to allow Delta to retain its underlying authority to operate the slot pair for Seattle-Haneda service, or whether the public interest would be better served by reallocating the slot pair for service from another U.S. city by another U.S. carrier or by Delta.”

“Delta has presented no information that would lead the Department to alter that conclusion. The Department has instituted this proceeding under its general powers to review the public interest bases of current awards,” Dot said.

The procedures set up by the department “will provide Delta, as well as any other interested carriers, ample opportunity to argue its position and present any evidence it may wish to present,” DOT said in Thursday’s decision.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said Thursday it is fining Southwest Airlines $1.6 million for keeping passengers on airplanes too long at Chicago Midway in January 2014.

The fine is the largest since the DOT implemented a regulation in 2010 that required airlines to give passengers the opportunity to get off airplanes that had been held on the ground for three hours or more.

“Airline passengers have rights, and the department’s tarmac delay rules are meant to prevent passengers from being stuck on an aircraft on the ground for hours on end,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in the DOT announcement.

DOT said that 16 Southwest flights had exceeded the maximum wait time. Southwest signed off on a consent order agreeing to the penalty.

Southwest chief operating officer and executive vice president Mike Van de Ven said the airline “conducted an extensive internal review of the events. Based upon our findings, we made significant investments in our operation to prevent recurrences, including enhancements to our policies and procedures, staffing and airfield monitoring equipment.

“While we are disappointed that the government would seek additional money, after the enormous penalties imposed on Southwest by Mother Nature during the January 2014 winter storms, we nonetheless appreciate the Department of Transportation giving Southwest credit for the substantial and costly remedial steps the airline voluntarily took before this consent order was issued,” Van de Ven said.

The delays came as Southwest Airlines struggled with a string of very cold days and inadequate staffing, as the carrier noted in an explanation issued following the DOT announcement:

On the night of January 2, 2014, 16 Southwest flights experienced tarmac delays upon landing at Chicago’s Midway International Airport (MDW) during Winter Storm Hercules. The storm delivered heavy snow fall and subzero temperatures to the Chicago area.

On the evening of the event, we had the goal of safely delivering our customers to Chicago. We met that goal; however, during the time period from 10:15 p.m. to 11:51 p.m., when the 16 affected flights were slated to arrive, the airfield at Midway became congested with aircraft from cancelled outbound flights. While Southwest Employees worked tirelessly to get arriving aircraft to gates as quickly as possible, ultimately, our efforts fell short in the face of challenging operational conditions.…

Prior to this event, Southwest had no tarmac delay fines from the DOT. We are committed to continuously enhancing our operation in an effort to mitigate tarmac delays in the future.

In the consent order, the DOT said that “Specifically, the carrier violated the Department’s tarmac delay rule by failing to adhere to the assurances in its contingency plan for lengthy tarmac delays that the carrier (1) would not allow an aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours for domestic flights before providing passengers an opportunity to deplane, and (2) would have sufficient resources to implement its plan.”

DOT noted that Midway had been hit with a “severe weather event” from Dec. 31, 2013, to Jan. 2, 2014, that included 12.3 inches of snow.

“In addition to severe weather on January 2, Southwest experienced a malfunctioning of its crew scheduling system and an unexpected shortage of staff, particularly the carrier’s ramp-crew,” the DOT order stated.

“Southwest’s ramp crew is responsible for baggage handling, de-icing, snow removal, and marshaling aircraft to and from the gates. The absence of some of Southwest’s ramp crew inhibited the carrier’s ability to clear aircraft from Southwest’s gates in a timely manner to accommodate arriving flights,” the order stated.

“At the time the sixteen flights at issue arrived at MDW [Midway], between 10:15 p.m. and 11:01 p.m., an employee shift change had taken place and the small ramp crew that remained made it impossible for Southwest to clear and prepare gates for the arriving flights in a timely manner,” the order stated.

“The Enforcement Office is not disputing, nor is this order based upon, Southwest’s assertion that it could not safely deplane passengers at that time,” it added.

The longest delay was on a flight from St. Louis, in which passengers were held on board for four hours and six minutes. The shortest delays were on two flights from Detroit and Columbus, Ohio, in which passengers were held on board for three hours and six minutes.

On average, it took Southwest three hours and 39 minutes to let passengers off the flights.

“Southwest states that on January 2nd, its employees worked tirelessly to get the 16 affected flights to the gate as soon as possible, but ultimately, their efforts fell short. Southwest notes, however, that the cabin crews on the affected flights ensured that passengers were provided with the services required by the tarmac delay rule such as food, water, announcements, functional lavatories, and medical attention as needed. Southwest states that on January 3, 2014, it proactively sent each of the affected passengers a message of apology and a Southwest LUV Voucher for future travel,” the DOT order said.

“Southwest states that after the January 2nd event, its internal team identified several specific steps that needed to be taken to avoid this kind of problem in the future, and Southwest has already implemented most of the team’s recommendations. Southwest emphasizes that safety is its top priority, it regrets the inconvenience caused to the passengers affected by the delay, and further states that it is committed to avoiding future tarmac delays,” it stated.

While the DOT release and order states that Southwest is being fined $1.6 million, it only has to write a $600,000 check to DOT:

– Southwest gets credit for $269,000 it paid out in compensation to passengers affected by the delays.

– It gets credit for $431,000 it invested in a “a surface management and surveillance system” at 32 airports “to monitor the location of each aircraft on the airfield.”

– The last $300,000 is forgiven unless Southwest violates the order during the next 12 months.

“Why such a large penalty?” DOT said on its blog. “Because this event involved more flights and more passengers than previous incidents assessed lesser penalties. DOT’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection has been working tirelessly to help make air travel as fair and friendly as possible. Since the 2009 rule went into effect, we have issued 17 orders with penalties for tarmac delays totaling $5.24 million.”

Employees wave goodbye to the last AirTran Airways flight as it departs Atlanta on Dec. 28.

AirTran Airways operated 90.4 percent of its flights on time in November, its last full month of operations, to lead U.S. airlines in on-time performance.

AirTran, a subsidiary of Southwest Airlines, flew its last flight Dec. 28.

Southwest couldn’t match its much smaller subsidiary, with 81 percent of its flights arriving on time to rank eighth among 14 U.S. carriers that report on-time numbers to the U.S. Department of Transportation. That was up 1.5 points from a year earlier.

Envoy Air, an American Airlines Group unit that flies as American Eagle, finished last with nearly one-third of its flights late at least 15 minutes. Only 69.3 percent of its flights arrived on time, meaning within 14 minutes of schedule, down 12.2 points from November 2013.

Parent American Airlines dropped 3.7 points to 78.2 percent. That put it last among the Big 4, behind Delta Air Lines (86.6 percent), Southwest (81.0 percent) and United Airlines (80.6 percent). American finished 11th out of the 14 carriers.

Rank

Airline

2013

2014

Change

1

AirTran

83.9%

90.4%

6.5

2

Hawaiian

93.9%

89.4%

-4.5

3

Delta

88.3%

86.6%

-1.7

4

Alaska

87.9%

84.7%

-3.2

5

US Airways

86.1%

83.0%

-3.1

6

Virgin America

85.7%

82.7%

-3.0

7

JetBlue

84.8%

81.1%

-3.7

8

Southwest

79.5%

81.0%

1.5

9

ExpressJet

79.0%

80.7%

1.7

10

United

85.0%

80.6%

-4.4

11

American

81.9%

78.2%

-3.7

12

SkyWest

85.4%

76.4%

-9.0

13

Frontier

78.6%

72.3%

-6.3

14

Envoy

81.5%

69.3%

-12.2

15

Total

83.5%

80.6%

-2.9

In addition to being the carrier most likely to be late, Envoy was also the carrier most likely to cancel a flight.

The DOT reported that Envoy cancelled 1,022 of its 29,169 flights scheduled in November, or 3.5 percent. That was nearly four times the industry average of 0.92 percent cancelled. Excluding Envoy, the rate was 0.75 percent.

Here’s a chart. Rounding of the numbers may make some of the changes not appear correct.

Rank

Airline

2013

2014

Change

1

Envoy

3.12%

3.50%

0.39

2

SkyWest

1.59%

2.22%

0.63

3

ExpressJet

1.49%

1.07%

-0.42

4

JetBlue

0.36%

0.76%

0.40

5

Southwest

0.53%

0.66%

0.13

6

US Airways

0.69%

0.65%

-0.03

7

United

0.56%

0.65%

0.09

8

American

1.61%

0.60%

-1.01

9

Frontier

0.28%

0.49%

0.21

10

Alaska

0.87%

0.43%

-0.45

11

AirTran

0.33%

0.30%

-0.02

12

Hawaiian

0.14%

0.26%

0.12

13

Virgin America

1.75%

0.15%

-1.60

14

Delta

0.03%

0.05%

0.02

Total

1.0%

0.9%

-0.08

If AirTran could have made one more passenger happy in November, it would have posted a perfect score in complaints per 100,000 passengers.

According to the DOT report, AirTran received one complaint out of 346,673 passengers carried. That gave it a complaint rate of 0.29 complaints per 100,000 passengers. It finished just ahead of parent Southwest, with 0.37 complaints per 100,000.

Rank

Airline

2013

2014

Change

1

AirTran

0.68

0.29

-0.39

2

Southwest

0.38

0.37

-0.01

3

Alaska

0.33

0.42

0.09

4

ExpressJet

0.46

0.47

0.01

5

SkyWest

0.58

0.59

0.01

6

Delta

0.42

0.60

0.18

7

Hawaiian

0.39

0.62

0.23

8

JetBlue

0.39

0.71

0.32

9

Virgin America

0.42

1.16

0.74

10

Envoy Air

1.18

1.18

0.00

11

US Airways

1.14

1.23

0.09

12

American

1.62

1.67

0.05

13

United

1.40

1.75

0.35

14

Frontier

3.59

3.30

-0.29

Total

0.86

0.97

0.11

If you don’t want to be bumped from your flight because of overbooking, Hawaiian Airlines is your choice. During the July-August period, it bumped only 0.65 passengers per 10,000 passengers, or one out of every 15,444 passengers.

On the other hand, pick regional carriers ExpressJet, SkyWest or Envoy if you want to be bumped (and be paid for it). They were at the bottom of the third quarter rankings.

Under new DOT rules, an airline must let passengers stow small musical instruments, like violins, as carry-on baggage. This Stradivarius violin was auctioned for more than $957,000 in London in October. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Over the weekend, I wrote an article about a new U.S. Transportation Department rule requiring airlines to accept musical instruments as carry-on items or checked baggage.

Delta Air Lines asked the U.S. Department of Transportation on Monday to reconsider its decision to examine whether to give Delta’s Tokyo Haneda route to some other airline.

Delta uses the right to fly from Seattle to the close-in Haneda. At American Airlines’ request, DOT announced Dec. 15 that it was starting a proceeding to see if those rights should go somewhere else because Delta wasn’t using them very often over the fall and winter.

In its filing Monday, Delta said it was meeting the requirements as spelled out when DOT in an allocation order granted Delta the Haneda rights.

“The Allocation Order contains no notice of other grounds for revocation of that authority, and Delta is full compliance with the order’s stated conditions. Despite that, the Department has elected to consider whether to reallocate those frequencies to another carrier,” Delta said in Monday’s filing.

“That decision is arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law, as would be any final decision by the Department to reallocate the frequencies,” the carrier said. “Delta accordingly seeks reconsideration of the Order.”

The Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots, backed American’s request to be able to use the Haneda rights to offer a daily flight from Los Angeles. Such a reallocation “is manifestly in the public interest,” APA said.

“As the Department well knows, the four daily slot pairs available to U.S. carriers for services between the U.S. and Haneda are a scarce, valuable resource. Delta’s current limited, seasonal service between Seattle and Haneda substantially underutilizes that resource,” the APA said in its Monday filing.

“In contrast, American has proposed a realistic plan for daily, year-round service between LAX and Haneda that is calibrated to improve the competitive structure of the U.S.-Tokyo market generally and respond to those characteristics that distinguish the U.S.-Haneda and U.S.-Narita markets,” APA said.

The DOT agreed to take a look at the situation after American pointed out that Delta would operate the Seattle-Tokyo Haneda flight only 17 times over 182 days. The DOT considers a route dormant if there are no flights in 90 days.

In its petition, Delta noted that American and United Airlines allowed Brazilian routes to go dormant for long periods without the DOT taking away their rights.

Monday was the deadline for petitions for reconsideration. The DOT has set Jan. 2 for parties to respond to such petitions.